Love Laws is a Thesis final year project for Lasalle’s Puttnam School of Film (BA) Honors course 2009, made by Lydia Cheriyan, along with six other students. The movie transpires the hypocrisy of the Indian tradition and explores the meaning of forbidden love.

Lydia about her movie: “When I was at the script stage, I knew I wanted to create a film that dealt with trying to overcome long governed culture and traditions. However I was not really sure which culture I wanted to delve into. I remember a friend telling me, “Why not embrace your Indian roots?” Being half Malay and half Indian, I was really weary of touching base with my Indian side of the family since I’ve not met any of them, including my father, for the past five years. Then I remembered my experience as a production manager for Eric Khoo‘s My Magic. It was an Indian film where -just like in our case- none of the crew members could speak Tamil. I’ve always wanted to be a producer. But somehow there was a driving force that I wanted to direct this film.”

“The film has very specific locations that I did not want to resemble Singapore in any way,” Lydia continues. “No HDB housing. No CBD areas. Instead, I wanted Love Laws to be filmed in very rural looking parts of Singapore – Bollywood Veggies was a brilliant location, Mandai Lake was another and of course Kampung Buangkok. With only six of us in class we were able to rope in our juniors to fill in the various departments, and working together was an amazing experience.”

Love Laws is written and directed by Lydia Cheriyan and produced by Chia Jia Hui and Tan Pei Jun Alvin. You can watch the movie together with four other Diploma films at the Lasalle HD Screening Room. 1pm daily till 31 May.